Monthly Archives: October 2023

no humbug

“You don’t understand the corruption of Butterfingers. He and his big ol’ parachute came down from the sky and cast a dark shadow over the whole mountaintop, likewise yellow Brick Road, *everything*.” Spoken from the heart. Laura knew a lot about the Land of Oz. She, after all, use to live there. Right before they turned off the lights.

“*Money*,” she followed, looming over them and casting her own black shadow. “Money ruined it then and money’s ruining it again. Cheapskatedness,” she made up a word about the issue.

Earlier:

“2000 linden dollars,” he said in his nasal, boyish way about the price to custom spray paint her dune buggy, careful not to cross the southeast corner of the property else the spell might be broken. Or so the Wizard told him.

“Oh that’ll be fine,” she said dreamily. After she saw the finished product and received the exorbitant bill she kept asking why why why?? Magic was afoot here, she then thought correctly. And not the white variety.

Mrs. Ordinary felt the need to go over and tell new bestie Pink all about the latest Big Sandy mystery/sorcery. What better way to do it than to show her the revamped bug up close and personal. But the reaction was unexpected.

“I *love* it — except for the price of course. Let’s take it for a spin — say, the tiny restaurant again?”

When Marsha watched Mrs. Ordinary — Ginger (Ginger?) — pay the bill once more, including another bottle of expensive liquor, she got an idea. “Here’s a theory — do you suppose that word has gotten around Big Sandy about how much money you spend? Attracting the scheming boy?”

And this is when overhearing Laura at the next table came over and did her spiel.

“*Wait*,” exclaimed Pink afterwards. “Did you just say he was *yellow*?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0505, Beach, Oz

00400504

Laura (black woman dancing to Black Sabbath in that last post) use to live next door to where she is now in a trailer with more colorful decoration. She left it behind for yet another Alice, Farrowheart in this case, who by chance was *also* looking for family here. “What a coincidence!” she cried over “Into the Void” when Alice Tart relayed to her the same. The 2 Alices must be looking for each other!

But, turns out, the name synchronicity was meaningless. Alice Tart was searching for her sisters Gloria and Wanda, who were indeed last seen in a Bellissaria sandy spot but further north and west on the old continent. We’ll see if they turn up anyway. Then Alice Farrowheart, the replacement neighbor in her former trailer (old woman, she thinks when accepting her application; *she* won’t be too much trouble surely!) was looking for a child, a granddaughter to be more specific. “Smart as a whip,” she described her when signing the agreement, adding in the alliterative phrase “precious precocious” a couple of times, she recalled. Last Alice F. heard: taken by pirates, rumored to be associated with USS Galaxy sitting big and fat and loong out in the Big Sandy harbour over there.

“Well, did you go on the ship, look around?” queried Laura after signing the contract herself as owner. 1 year lease. She liked the neighborhood but the neighbor’s trailer to the east was just a bit too close for rocky comfort. And also he (Tom) liked to spy on her during various moments of the day, like shower time, exercise time, times when her boyfriend Ted came over — you get the picture. Let Tom get a gander of old, wrinkled up Alice F. instead! she thought while the ink dried in front of her.

“I got in touch with a ship steward who verified she was there,” answered Alice F. “Last seen hanging out with 2 men, one of whom was two toned in hue.”

“How did she get there in the first place?”

“Well. Let’s just say Toddles has a penchant for *wandering*.”

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0504, Bellisaria, Sandfly

blackness and light

She was just finishing hanging up the sheets when the music started next door. “Darn tiny restaurant,” she cussed at first, then began involuntarily dancing in place when she realized it was Ozzie Osbourne’s old group Black Sabbath, and her favorite album of theirs “Master of Reality” ta boot. Oh what the heck, she thought. Time to meet some of the neighbors anyway, make some new friends potentially. But I’ll also gently remind whoever is in charge over there that the music must stop at 11 — she needs her beauty rest. And if they started with the country… well, that’s it. She’ll ring up the mayor of Big Sandy who is a good friend. Dolores something, she recalls, if not quite grasping a last name to go with the familiar first. Just across Big Channel she lives — probably can hear the music a bit from her place as well, she figures.

But by the time “Into the Void” rolled around, last track on the famed heavy metal album, everyone was pooped out except herself and Alice over there, still dancing up a storm too. She may have made one friend tonight. They had a common interest. Finding family in the Land of Sand.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0503, Bellisaria, Sandfly

blog post now

“It was a naval kiss but not that kind of kiss. From River — you remember. You almost put it in a blog post back then. Novel 39 I believe. Jack Benny the comedian-violinist would not be proud that you have moved into 40. He wished to remain (in) 39 all of his life!”

Once again Marsha started to ponder All Orange, thinking back to the research she did in her old room over in Meat City on the Omega continent, Mother feeding her free sandwiches and whatnot throughout it all. Probably drugged as well, she concludes as she’s thinking of it, reviewing it. Distracted by the computer, she knew she wouldn’t notice. Mother. *Mother*.

She bounced up out of the lounger. Mother put down her second apple she was working on, having thrown away the core of the first in the beach grass or bushes just over there. 1st green, this one red. She had progressed from better to best by the taste of it. Or worse to worst, depending on which way you’re looking at the situation.

“Stew dogs’ ready!” called Eddie from the red hot grill. “WELLL. I hope you’re still hungry after all that fruit,” spoke pseudo-daughter Marsha down to Wheeler with this. Wheeler, on her part, was going to see eating the latest apple through to the bitter end. She intended to eat the core this time. She was going to finish it all.

But not until after the dogs. Dogg walks up. “Rat you reating Reeler?”

“None of your business mutt,” she dismissed him out of hand.

“Rogg, actually,” spoke Dogg, thinking she just misstated his actual name. Moving on…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0502, Bellisaria, Omega^^, River, Sandfly, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^

00400501

When Marsha “Pink” Krakow returned to what she knew was her true home now, Big Sandy on the oldest Bellissaria continent, her Mother was waiting. With a big surprise. “I bought this for you,” she said to her shocked daughter after she arrived, indicating the trailer. “Pink, you see, or as close as I could get to that hot variation you prefer.” Edward, her Eddie, was already blackening his patented vegetable stew dogs on what Wheeler told him was his new grill. He was already sold.

“Oh. And that pink scooter you’re standing beside! What do you think?”

Marsha was thinking of *price*, not necessarily money price but emotional price. And here it comes.

“I can see you’re speechless, dearest. Come sit beside me and we’ll talk.” Wheeler patted the lounging couch across from her and then pulled out an apple to eat. “Price?” Marsha wanted to ask her so bad. “Price price price?” And here it comes.

“Have you talked to Serenity since you’ve been here (chomp, chew chew chew)? Never mind, dear, I know you have. You told her about Shelley, my *actual* daughter.”

“*I’m* your daughter,” she wanted to protest at this point, but knew it technically wasn’t true — in a way. Shelley provided the body and added a lot to the personality as well. But Brown was also there inside. Conscience? Mere gestures? She wasn’t quite sure yet about the so-called 3rd component, the last of a trilogy. And then herself up front and on top of course, resurrected from what happened in photo-novel 19 that she doesn’t like to think about a lot. Cook for the Ozmo Devils. Dead in the head in bed like Jed. “Why didn’t you tell me about Serenity?” she actually said aloud. “That she wasn’t her cousin but her *wife*?”

“Oh it’s just one of those things that slips the mind (chomp; chew, chew, chew). Lots of important stuff going on up there,” and here she pauses in her apple eating to tap on her forehead. “I’m still the mayor of that damn Meat City and its dominant male energy. *I’m* more male than them, despite the body, the femininity,” she decided to put it. Marsha understood. Her mother had to put the town council (etc.) in their place or they’d gain the upper hand again, the blame misogynists. Dominant sex, *pheh*. Marsha had to do the same with her Eddie in a lesser way. It’s just how men are raised in our society in part, she figured. So she didn’t blame him *all* that much for his own, lesser brand of the disease of the mind.

Marsha had to ask this next”: “W-why, then, oh why… did you put me in prison? Turn me into a *doll* Feed me those drugs through my head to think that I *wasn’t* in prison but next door, singing karaoke until the wee hours of the night? With the fake doll looking on?”

“Rockaway Beach?” Wheeler started her answer, citing the name of the first place which was also its location. “Kenzie’s Korner in Kuradov?” she said the same about the second. Now the circumstances.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0501, Bellisaria, Sandfly

another try/revisions

“Senseless war, Speck. Redshirts a plenty.”

“Our past, Cpt.” He arches one of his non-spiraling eyebrows ever higher while checking the tricorder he holds in his hand. “Aand. Our future I’m detecting.”

“How– can… that be, Speck. I… mean…”

“I know what you mean, Cpt.” says Speck, the person playing him thinking that Don is overdoing it again. Shakespearian actors, pheh. He: a Marlowe fan. “Time… doesn’t seem to factor into the equation. Nor space.”

“Space and time, Speck,” gruffly cussed Doc just offcamera here. “Is that all your Vulcan mind can comprehend? There’s such things as *feelings*.”

He turns toward Doc and thus offcamera as well. “I understand feelings too, Doctor. I’m half–”

“Just… stop it– guys.” Cpt. again of course. “This is just– what the Daruvians want us to do. Bicker… amongst ourselves.” He turns halfway toward the camera, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He’s hatching a plot in his mind, a play within a play. “What if… *we* become the actors they *want* us… to be.”

“Or not to be,” Speck chipped in with a rare kind of joke.

Doc — offcamera still — huffed. “You *act*, Cpt. — like the Daruvians are also anything but barbarians. They’re not, dammit. I’ve seen what they did to Jed. Right in the head in bed until he was dead.” He stares intensely at the Cpt. and then Speck. Or so I’ve been told.

“Jed was… an anomaly, Doc.”

“He was a *person*,” counters still fuming Doc. Always angry. Grumpy. “Just because he had 8 arms and a head the size of Nebraska–”

“I’m picking up on something else,” interrupts Speck, always checking for logical developments. “The situation inside the arch has slightly altered to make it a bit more interesting. The primitive weapons known as muskets… are now hoisted over their right shoulders. Not their left.”

All watched as the guns were then lowered and turned. At them.

“RUNNN!!”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0416, Omega^^, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island^

00400415

Ketchup Tom knew this day would come. End of gig; time to go. But what is time here? It was as if he’d just arrived.

He stared at what he remembered was a sim-skipper outside the window in the harbour. “Should’ve come in on that instead of Marsha’s VW,” he muttered to himself. Marsha was in the shower. *No*: Marsha insisted on renting the place next door instead of staying in the same apartment with Ketchup. She certainly hadn’t given up on Eddie, her Edward, back in Big Sandy — which we’ll be returning to soon.

Ketchup Tom knew he was The Musician. He knew he could come in but, once here, couldn’t leave, unlike so many before him. Because he was different. He and the town were like two cut out pieces of paper stuck together. Like fused leaves of an old waterlogged book found floating in the harbour. “*No*,” he insisted just as vehemently back to Marsha in the rental place next door when he came to tell her. “You have your place and I have mine. Here.”

Yellow House, he knew. He wasn’t going anywhere. Marsha would have leave Gaston by herself.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0415, Gaston^^

time doesn’t exist

His attached mohawk was more pink than red before but obviously the same otherwise. Ketchup Tom = The Musician fer sure.

“I *lived* here.” Yes, Musician. You were Duncan Avocado as well, breaking the cycle of 10 to 13 to 10 to 13 over and over and over. You glimpsed sunnier 18 and you ran with it. All the way down the street to the car and outta here. But now you’re back. “But now I’m back,” the character said in the present to reinforce this idea.

Mokum, he also thinks in the present, reading the writing on the wall. He remembers that too. Red again.

“My mohawk!” he cries, also realizing the small but still significant color shift.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0414, Gaston^^, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^

a punk is born (zooming in on yellow (1st thing in the morning))

Many famous musicians have walked the roads of Gaston, and many famous musicians have left from such roads. Not George, though: he remained glued to the town through his car as it were, white in the daylight here but silver at night, as silver as Maxwell’s Hammer.

And now his soul has returned as the strumming punk known as Ketchup Tom because of his red mohawk if not visa versa, Marsha “Pink” Krakow his new drummer in tow, owner of her own VW Bug and one she perhaps is glued to as well, and even perhaps the *same* bug. Paired silver and gold as we’ve mentioned before — or white and yellow in the daytime. The Portal. Mimosa. Probably dusk and dawn as I’m writing and thinking this out.

George also existed here as Duncan Avocado, a character very important to the blog and attached photo-novels up until and including 31. 3-1 (March 1). His birthday which was also kind of his death day, at least in my eyes. He lay in a blue-yellow tent on the floor of the Collagesity library after that, a virtual structure last seen in Constantynople which has recently been destroyed/derezzed, with a final friend in the library *still* a friend — but simply too busy with a young kid to have much time for anything else, including our promised hikes. Important thing: I don’t hold it against him. And I should probably get over my disappointment with Duncan too. Put it in the rear view window. Thing is, we’re *doppelgangers*.

Red blue yellow houses in a row to begin. Again.

“Ugh, my head. W-where am I? And *who* am I?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0413, Gaston^^

00400412

AND she’s started smoking pot. That’ll teach the Powers that Be, she thought while finally exhaling the wicked weed and then feeling the Devil pull her heart out through her belly button. All Orange, she thinks. “All Orange!” she cries, looking at the thing wriggling and writhing in front of her like a Red Incubus Baby. RIB she decided to call it on the spot as it was dropped to the ground and walked away on its own energy. Into the night — it would always be there from now on, she knew. Waiting…

There it is again and 10 times larger!

—–

He liked this particular apt. because he could keep an eye on Newton’s boat out in the harbour, a sim-skipper. He knew that if the unique ship was gone for any length of time, then it could come back with an outsider, which might be bad, really bad. He had too much invested here in this Gaston, formerly Mimosa. Pot was basically free, Philip’s pills were plentiful. It was perfect for the criminal duo. Shady dealings all around. Laggy but — small price to pay. And now he had Hucka. But did he really? She didn’t have the best reaction to that pot he provided her night before last, he continued to ponder. And she didn’t call last night like she promised.

She could figure a way to get out which would also be bad, leave a potential trail for others to follow, both out *and* in. He’ll have to review with her the collage and the pushing and the arrival at the jail. Casey One Hole, PHEH. He’s still around too, he knew.

“Marion, I’m *bored*. Let’s go do some drugs or something. Sex, drugs, rock–”

“Don’t say it,” Marion cut him off. Strum and Drum was playing one last time at the Rhino tonight and Hucka D. hadn’t called about a potential date. And it was protocol in this Sadie Hawkins kind of town for her to do so, females rolling the dice instead of the men in affairs of the heart. But… she said her heart was stolen over at the pool after she finished off his joint. Maybe he should have warned her about the potency, and that he’d been smoking so long that it took a powerful strain to do anything for him any more. Maybe — he looked over — maybe he was stuck with Philip after all.

“Okay,” he said. “But I still would like to drop by the concert sometime.”

“Will Levon be there?” the professional pill popper on the couch asked.

“You bet he will.” And he asked him to keep an eye out for Hucka too and to call if he sees or hears anything, he thought privately. She *did* leave the first part of the gig for a while the other night, the Ketchup Tom composed half which involved a lot of noise, she said afterwards. But she seemed to enjoy the transfigured “Jackie Blue” enough to end; asked a lot of questions about its origin and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and then the mountain they were named after. “Big Sandy,” she said at one time about the current band. “They said they were from Big Sandy.”

“Yeah?” Marion said back. “It’s a place. People have to come from places and go to other places,” he said matter of factly, adding a smile.

“There’s a boat out in the harbour there,” she then said, which immediately made him think of Newton’s boat but which turned out to be much larger. And more complicated.

“3 sims?!” he cried when she told him the dimensions of the thing. An internal sim-skipper, he dwelled about afterwards, complete unto itself. *Danger-ous*. But also completely fascinating.

“Philip?” he said in the present, hatching a new idea. “How would you like it if I bought us 2 golden tickets to visit the mainland?” *Or*, he then thought… hmm, how *exactly* did *Strum and Drum* get here, hmph? He knew about the Volkswagen Bug of course; it was still parked half on the sidewalk outside the club. But… it couldn’t just *come over* by itself from the mainland. Not without some kind of magical aid.

Daffy Duck had just blown up Uncle Scrooge with a rigged 100 dollar bill. “Say what?” Philip said, not breaking his stare from the TV and the blackened duck, suddenly realizing he was hungry.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0412, Gaston^^